Vitus's VFX Journey. – Page 9 – What Vitus can do ?

Nuke

Week 8: Planar Tracking.

The class started with reviewing last week’s iPhone homework. Then we moved on to class, and Gonzalo started talking about different ways of reformating and how it affects the image. Then moved to Concatenation so it means is the ability to perform one single mathematical calculation across several tools in the Transform family. This single calculation (or filter) allows us to retain as much detail as possible basically if don’t use the transform tools family in the right way we will lose the quality of the footage.

The shuffle node is used when you liked to change the RGBA as a different output for example if you want to change your reds to blue you can do this by using shuffle. Using this node we can edit the layers or one layer in the EXR file. We can also calculate the depth of the image by using this.

Tracking in 2.5D spaces, to achieve this we need to add a plant tracker, which is the same as the roto tool. We need to add 4 points so that we can track that space, then click on the display_grid_lines then move the grid to the perspective of the posters so we can cover it, click on the CornerPin2D (absolute) and add a merge A to the CornerPin2D (absolute) the B to the footage.

For the homework, we had to cover the old poster and add whichever poster we like.

We also had to work on our balloon festival.

In this class, we got to learn how to clean up the walls or any surface in 2D space and how to use the shuffle node and I feel it is beneficial for understanding the depth.

Design For Animation

Week 7: Group Discussion

The class started with segregating the students into small groups. We had a discussion about our research topic. My topic is How did the early films impact the editing techniques now?

I was planning to write about masking, chroma key, digital compositing and matte painting. Writing about chroma key alone was a 1,000 word venture. My group mate suggested that I should concentrate on one topic for the research and leave the others for my thesis and this was a sensible suggestion.

Nuke

Week 7: 2D Tracking.

This week was all about tracking. We learned how to stabilize footage using a tracker and saw more options under track export and we tried to use these applications for our video.

This week’s homework is to complete tracking and animating the iPhone video and start working on our balloon festival project.

Maya

Week 7: Still at Face.

We continued perfecting our face model. We started off by making facial reactions like blinking. The next step was to give motion to the whole head first, we had to add joints and add keys in the frame so it moves at the right time. Then we tried to open the mouth for that we had to use paint skin weight tool to paint the upper half and the lower half. At the end of the class, we started working on the teeth.

Design For Animation

Week 6: Academic Writing.

Post author By Vitus Lasrado
Post date 13th November 2022
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This weeks class was conducted online because of the underground strike. The class was about our research and the thesis. We discussed the different ways of writing it writing, like how to build your argument and add your own voice to it, how to quote people and their work, and how to paraphrase the right way.

We had to read the following paragraph and paraphrase the author’s point in our own words.

Original quote: The authenticity of a documentary is ‘deeply linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images are linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images bear evidence of events that actually happened, by virtue of the indexical relationship between image and reality’

Horness Roe. A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

My quote: Horness Roe (2013, Animated Documentary) believes in the relationship between image and reality, a documentary’s authenticity to realism and the pictures convey proof of events that truly transpired.

Nuke

Week 6: Colour.

This week in Nuke we saw ways to colour grade and correct. Gonzalo also explained how different Logs work and how different company cameras make different log formats. How to import a flat video and give it the colour, then put it back to flat so the VFX and the video will have some colour range.

So this week our homework was to match the 3D jet to a sky and this is my shot at it.

Design For Animation

Week 5: Politics and Documentary in Animation.

Post author By Vitus Lasrado
Post date 9th November 2022
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This week’s class started off with learning more about how we, as creators can influence or persuade audiences using tools like social media, broadcast news, events, film, animation and television. This was followed by a discussion about Animated Documentary and what it means. We saw a few animation documentaries as well.

For our blog entry, we had to talk about whether an animation documentary could actually be classified as a documentary, applying Honess Roes’ ‘Taxonomy for the documentary. We also had a discussion about what arguments presented by Nichols or Formenti might question that definition.

I felt the best way to understand if an animation documentary is classified as a documentary is to look at 25 April by Leanne Pooley.

This is a documentary that aims to tell the story of New Zealand’s experience in Gallipoli (Turkey) for a modern audience through a reimagined world. April 25 uses novel-like animation to transform the experience of World War I from the usual black-and-white, archive pictures into vibrant, dynamic colours. The film intertwines together animated “interviews” based on the diaries, letters and memoirs of six real-life people, who were actually there and told fascinating stories of war, friendship, loss and redemption using the words of those who experienced it.

Coming to the question of whether an animation documentary is classified as a documentary, I would strongly agree that yes, it is a documentary. When Honess Roe questioned “if animation is an acceptable mode of representation for the documentary”, this got me thinking about what the word ‘documentary’ exactly means, so I Googled “documentary,” and came across the following definition: “using pictures or interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject.”. A documentary should be a factual report, just adding animation to a factual report that could be an interview, diary, letters, memoir, and video or audio recording doesn’t make it less of a factual report. When you animate a documentary you add elements about what going on in the head of the character: for example when John Persson was marching townies “Chunuk Baia” the flash of the 450 soldiers and how they died before he came there, also how they depicted lice having a party.

Bill Nichols said that a “documentary is dependent on the specificity of its images for authenticity”, the movie April 25 is based on diaries, letters and memoirs from Gallipoli (Turkey) during World War I. If the director had planned to use only the images from Gallipoli it would be more of a slide show than a documentary. For a good narrative, there should be good audio-visuals for the audience to be a part of the story to understand exactly what happened.

The Solid State (2015), 25 APRIL [2015] - Official Trailer. YouTube[Online Video]. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKtgYXHdMZw&ab_channel=TheSolidState[9th November 2022].

Maya

Week 6: Face Modeling.

This week, we continued from where we left off last week. First, we added the eyes and then used shape editors to get different facial expressions. We then improved the face material and assigned it to the head, later using the UV editor to make sure the material and the head are aligned appropriately. We also opened up Mudbox. This is an extension of Maya where we learnt how to use the clone and burn tools to give the eyelid the same texture as the face. We then got this material back to Maya and assigned the face.

Nuke

Week 5: Rotoscoping and Tracking.

Post author By Vitus Lasrado
Post date 6th November 2022
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This week in Gonzalo’s class, we started by reviewing last week’s roto which we all had to complete.

We then moved on to learn how to track an object and assign it to a roto. He also demonstrated to us the right and wrong ways to roto, by keeping the alpha less than 1 which can be done by clamping all your roto together and then adding a merge to keep operation to the screen. We were also shown what premutation is and guided on how to use it.

This week’s homework was to roto the bridge by using the tracker.

Maya

Week 5: Face Modeling.

This week we had to use “quad draw” to model a face. It is like making a mask over a 3D face. We had to make sure that the mask had been squared and evenly distributed so that it looked smooth while making the model talk. We made one half of the face and then duplicated that half on the other side to get the whole face. We also used sculpting tools to add more details.